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December 2019 Seasons Greetings! Can you believe how fast this school year is going? It seems like only yesterday we felt the excitement of a new school year and we wished

you and your student much success and joy in learning this year. Now we are already approaching another holiday season and the end of the

first semester. We can see from the newsletter articles you submitted

that your students are indeed experiencing success and joy in learning.

We are proud to share your accomplishments and events with the larger

virtual world through this newsletter.

As we end this year we are happy to introduce Lilly as our new addition

to the virtual department. She will be your point of contact for district

updates, legislative tracking and publishing the Virtual View. She can

be reached at Lillian.withers@fldoe.org.

May you, your family and your students have a wonderful winter break

and experience many blessings and much success in the new year.

Sandy, Stephen, Lisa and Lilly

The Virtual View - Page 1

Inside this Issue

K12 Page 2

FLVS Page 3

BVS Page 4

PVS Page 5

Florida Online Page 5 Course Catalog

HVS Page 6

SJVS Page 7

Lee Virtual Page 7

“Educating the

mind without

educating the heart is no

education at all”

—Aristotle

K12 News!

Great news! K12 now has a NEW semester elective that is

available in their catalog! M/J Coding Fundamentals is a

middle school course that introduces students to

coding. Coding is quickly becoming one of the most

important and versatile skills of the future. Coding can be

used in many different industries and sectors including

healthcare, business and technology.

We are excited about the opportunities this course will

offer to our students and their future!

Submitted by Brenda MacDonald

K12 is happy to be a Sponsor of the Florida District Virtual Instruction Program Network

(FLDVIPN) conference again in 2020. FLDVIPN’s 8th Annual Symposium will be held in

Orlando, Florida. This is a three day conference hosted at The Florida Hotel and Conference

Center January 29 - 31, 2020. There will be an event featuring exhibitors, speakers and

participants that are excited about virtual learning and the impact it is having in the world of

education. K12 is proud to partner with FLDVIPN this year to share our best practices, teacher ex-

periences, and successful resources to be a part of the future of education.

We look forward to learning from many of our colleagues throughout the virtual education world to

gain greater knowledge to share with our students and our staff!

Submitted by Kristen Randolph

The Virtual View - Page 2

FLVS Stays Busy in December!

Student events are abound all year long at Florida Virtual School, with December bringing a flurry of

science activities. FLVS celebrated Computer Science Education Week and Hour of Code with

engaging online events and activities which explored coding and gaming. The FLVS Science National

Honor Society is also sponsoring an international “Virtual Science Fair” for Kindergarten-12th grade

students. Coming January 27-31, FLVS looks forward to Celebrate Literacy Week, as well as World

Fest 2020, which will be held on Jan. 30, from 6-8 p.m. For more information, visit https://flvs.net/

student-resources/clubs-activities/clubs.

FLVS is proud to offer a new course for middle school students: M/J Coding Fundamentals. In this

half-credit elective Career and Technical Education (CTE) course, students will learn about the

technology they use in day-to-day life and will be introduced to the basics of computer science. M/J

Coding Fundamentals is now enrolling for students to start in January 2020. Check out a

sample video from the course and learn more about M/J Coding Fundamentals.

FLVS shared a new initiative to spotlight amazing teachers who

go that one step further to help students. Teachers who provide

more than encouragement and support; teachers who provide

Works of Heart. Four teachers were highlighted in November at

the FLVS In-Service Training Days. View their Works of

Heart video stories

The December issue of Florida Trend focused on the Floridian of the

Year: Florida Teachers. Lisa Fabulich, FLVS 2019-20 Teacher of the

Year, was one of the teachers selected to be spotlighted! Fabulich, an

FLVS Full Time Biology teacher, masterfully uses the online classroom

to create rich, thematic environments for her students to discover new

ideas and explore their understanding of complex scientific concepts. In

addition to her role as a teacher, she has become a subject matter expert

in 6-12 grade level sciences and has made significant contributions by

coaching and supporting her peers as online educators. To read more

about her, visit Floridian of the Year.

Submitted by Suzan Kurdak

The Virtual View - Page 3

BVS Works and Plays Hard!

Happy holidays from Broward Virtual School (BVS)!! We are excited to

share that we have completed our academic seminars in math and

Language arts for the months of September, October, and November. We had over 100 students attend the sessions, where they engaged and

collaborated with their teachers and peers in math and writing skills.

After the seminars, students had the opportunity to participate in live

science labs, including water property labs and a sweet vs sour food lab

where students “tricked” their taste buds using The Miracle Berry and

discovered the acidity levels of fruits.

At BVS, we also make every effort to give back to our community. Throughout October and

November, BVS conducted a food collection for the Harvest Drive, through which we were able to

help families in need and provide some holiday joy! We are also in the midst of a toy drive, all items

collected will be donated to the Endeavor Primary Learning Center.

BVS teachers and club leaders have provided our students with some exciting opportunities this semester. The Science Department took 30 students to

“I-Fly”, an indoor skydiving facility, through which they participated in

hands-on STEM activities and had the chance to experience indoor skydiving!

The World Language team celebrated “Spanish Heritage Month” with an

on-campus field trip. Students were able to indulge in authentic Spanish

cuisine and also learn about the multiple Latin cultures, including art and dance activities. The Birding Club brought in exotic birds to our facility to educate students on the natural habitat and care of tropical birds not native to Florida.

We are also very proud of our growing senior class, which currently has 115 students, and will expand

further after our next admission period, ending December 19th. This year, we held our first Senior

Meeting in October, during College and Career Awareness Week. At this event, seniors represented

their favorite colleges and earned raffle prizes for completion of FAFSA and the Bright Futures

Scholarship applications. We had an amazing turnout and we are looking forward to our spring events!

We would like to celebrate one of our seniors, Jillian Bourdage, who has

been accepted to the University of Ohio on a full athletic and academic scholarship to play golf for the school. Currently ranked #2 in her senior

class, Jillian has worked hard to not only become a championship caliber athlete, but also to pave the path to her ultimate goal of becoming an

airline pilot. We are excited to see what other amazing accomplishments

the Class of 2020 will achieve!

We wish you a happy and safe holiday! See you next year!

Submitted by Antonette McGregor

The Virtual View - Page 4

Pinellas takes a Field Trip!

This fall, Pinellas Virtual School M/J Health and HOPE students took a field trip to the Johns

Hopkins All Children’s Education and Conference Center in St. Petersburg. Registered

Dietitian, Megan Armstrong, guided the students through the process of preparing a delicious,

nutritious, kid-friendly meal of Veggie Quesadillas, “GO” Tacos, and Black-eyed Pea Salad (yes,

that’s right, they ate black-eyed peas and loved them!). During the cook-

ing class, students were able to get hands-on experience with topics

they’ve studied in health class such as food safety and reading nutrition

labels. After enjoying dinner, Megan then explained how the meal was

far more filling and cost-effective than fast food. Before leaving, the stu-

dents had one final activity to

complete. They took a bottle of their favorite sugary drink (Coke,

Mountain Dew, Gatorade, Sunny D) and did some quick math to

figure out how many scoops of sugar each drink

contained. They then had to scoop that

amount of sugar into a cup. It was a great

visual for the students. As we continue to

fight childhood obesity, arming students with this knowledge is essential,

and Pinellas County is very fortunate to have access to Johns Hopkins

resources and professionals who are dedicated to doing just that.

Submitted by Michelle Starrett

FOCC’s Newest Update!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

The Florida Online Course Catalog (FOCC) has gone through another update this year! As you all may know, we have gone to a single sign-on (SSO) functionality which requires district admins and district users to gain access from the district LEA before connecting to the department single sign on page to access the FOCC. It sounds like a lot of extra work just to get into the catalog doesn’t it? But in the long run, it will be much easier and you won’t ever have to remember a username or password again!

We have received the data to load the completion and passage rates into the catalog for the 2018-19 school year, per s. 1002.321. We will be contacting the districts to ensure that what each district reports is in fact the same data that displays in the FOCC and in the PERA spreadsheet. We have over 20,000 courses listed in the catalog and we look forward to seeing how many students have completed and passed those courses!

I would like to thank you all for the work that you do for the students in Florida and it is always my pleasure to work with each of you! I wish you all a wonderful holiday season and a blessed New Year!

Submitted by Lisa Luna

The Virtual View - Page 5

HVS Celebrates its 10th Year!

Hillsborough Virtual School is celebrating its 10th anniversary in big ways!

HVS teachers have been super busy this fall to provide our students with

some awesome experiences! To honor Hispanic Heritage month in

September, our students took a walking tour of historic Ybor City, and our

foreign language and math teachers hosted a cross-curriculum activity

allowing the students the opportunity to learn how to make Arepas.

In October, we inducted new students into our honor societies, and our elementary students attended a

fall festival where they practiced skills such as measuring, estimating, planning, predicting, listening

and collaboration while tie dying shirts, building gumdrop towers, and catapulting candy pumpkins!

Meanwhile, our secondary students got to meet some new animal friends and learn about the different

animal kingdoms thanks to one of our science teachers!

November brought Great American Teach-In guest speakers from USF Health for a face-to-face session

where students got to upcycle some old t-shirts to create individual tote bags, along with some

awesome guest speakers in online sessions!

Our civics teacher provided a community service activity where students

wrote letters of appreciation to our troops for the holidays, and some of our

elementary Spanish students learned how to make piñata cakes!

It’s been a hectic, but rewarding first semester at HVS! As

we count down to the end of 2019, we would like to wish

everyone a relaxing winter break!

Submitted by Sherri Hillgruber

The Virtual View - Page 6

Exciting News for St. Johns Virtual School!

In the Fall of 2019, SJVS had some turnover at the top. Our

very own Ryan Erskine was promoted to Assistant Principal

and we brought on a new Registrar/Testing Coordinator,

Kimberly Lippo. We also had the privilege of being

recognized for the first-time as a Florida School of

Excellence for our elementary program. Our secondary

program was recognized as a Florida School of Excellence

for the second year in a row.

Lastly, we have finally received permission to have our own logo/mascot. SJVS is now proud to say

that we are Home of the Rams!!!

Submitted by Ryan Erskine

Lee Virtual Now Provides SEL! This year, we took on a new concept required by the State of Florida to provide “Social Emotional

Learning (SEL)” to students. Lee Virtual is the first online program in the state to utilize SEL to its

full extent meeting the requirements set forth by the state. The SEL curriculum became a part of our

homeroom meeting process. We began in October and we are happy to report that it has been well

received and has fostered positive discussions between students and teachers alike.

We are well into planning our 10 year anniversary celebration. We’ve secured a date and location.

With the help of our National Honor Society & National Junior Honor Society members, we were

able to reach out to LVS alumni to not only invite them to the celebration but also ask them to be a

part of the planning.

For the holidays, our wonderful SAC Committee put together a breakfast for our staff. They were also

able to provide a gift for all 41 members of our LVS staff. We are so very grateful for all their hard

work and dedication to making sure our staff feels appreciated!

Submitted by Cynthia Vasquez

The Virtual View - Page 7